


If I was to Say to You

by Jables



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Salt And Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 18:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jables/pseuds/Jables
Summary: ONe shot of Dean alone on a salt and burn.Dean stares down at his hands, spattered and dirt-crusted, par for the course, any given Sunday in his shitastic life. Another button is lost to the cause as he pulls at the sleeve of his current favorite shirt. Blood is dripping from the carefully mended cuff that no longer hangs past his wrist these days.





	If I was to Say to You

Dean stares down at his hands, spattered and dirt-crusted, par for the course, any given Sunday in his shitastic life. Another button is lost to the cause as he pulls at the sleeve of his current favorite shirt. Blood is dripping from the carefully mended cuff that no longer hangs past his wrist these days.

The smell of gasoline is strong in the air and the empty salt cans roll around at his feet as an unnatural wind kicks up, the lighter suddenly slippery in his nicked fingers; he doesn’t even feel the sting anymore.

“Game Time,” he huffs out, it’s a visible puff, the cold grasping with malicious hands at his breath as the wind whips frigid and howling. He has to make it back to the grave that Tim Burton built, and burn the mother down, so he can be done with this Depp driven-nightmare and on his way getting into trouble with that cool blonde he saw three diners back.

He spits out a leaf that makes itself at home on his face, and turns to shrug it off, a snarky comeback poised on the tip of his tongue, only to find a Red Alder’s stoic countenance. He lets one hand lean against it as he smothers a stray pang of loss without mercy. Debris everywhere, now, leaves and roots, detritus and soil, unearthing that deep, loamy stench: all signs point to an open grave in the vicinity

Without warning the barometric pressure drops, making his ears pop and the hairs on his forearm stand on end. The day is turning a sickly green, and all his inner sirens are pinging.

_ Three…two….one _ .  _ Come on, baby, light my fire. _

A flash of green has him leaping to the right, and rolling as the latest bitch to break bad attacks where he had just been leaning against the tree.  Her nails score the pale wood and he can’t help but think of gravestones like finger bones pointing to the sky, and a white suit.

_ Danger, make sure Sammy--- _ he tenses, but then _ decisively _ banishes that ghost to the bottom of the next bottle _ , one haunt at a time _ .  Years of reflexes have him ready, even if his mind isn’t all the way in the game. He shakes himself back into the moment, and renews his intense denial, his force field up once more.

He fakes a juke, zags around a pair of truly gnarly talons, narrowly avoiding a face full of ‘em as he slides beneath her like some sort of freaking cartoon and can’t help the grin that graces his gritty face.

She shrieks and yells down a hail of anger, and actual fricking hail as he slips past and not-so-gracefully lunges to his feet, scraping by. He keeps moving forward, covering his eyes with his left arm in front of him keeping the lighter down in his right.

He thinks he’s made it free of her just as one rotting claw rips cruelly into his shoulder. He hisses and drops his body’s center of gravity so her second blow gets nothing but air.  He coils and heaves himself to the side, barely twisting far enough to avoid being disemboweled, aiming for a patch of grass. Instead he connects with a broken stump, it’s a jarring explosion of starbursts, there’s a wrenching and a loud crack; a rib, possibly two.  _ Shit, shit, shit. No Time for love, Doctor Jones, get…Up, Pain is a distraction _ ; he can hear his father’s voice scraping his mind.

He grunts like a wounded beast but gets back on his feet like he was taught Dean digs for the custom iron knuckles he’d made for moments exactly like this from his blood-crusted pocket. He gets it round his fingers and pulls it out, forming a fist. When she starts to materialize talons raised and razor sharp he rears his fist back and with a southpaw Bobby ‘d be proud of; he cracks the corpse bride back into the black once more.

_ Gotta keep moving, kid, this ain’t no country for old men. _

He is determined to take advantage of the few seconds he’s bought himself. That’s when he notices it, red, rusty with blood, glinting in the gathering shadows.

The lighter _. _

_ Motherfuck this thing right in the ass _ ,

He curses again at not having a backup. He can almost hear the long-haired, whiny lecture in his head. 

He makes it another four steps before the wind is on him, bearing him down to his hands and knees. His fingers are scrabbling for the dull shine out of the corner of his eye. He is now a yard away; the smell of death is almost overpowering.

Suddenly it’s in his hand. He shouts hoarsely into the freezing air, victorious.  Then with a marshal of either bravery or stupidity he makes a mad dash for it, He’s bruised and bleeding from more than one unnamed part of his body as he crashes and careens like a drunkard.

A tree branch thrashes him, he tries to duck but rolls clumsily, as splinters miss his neck by inches when it instead slams into a boulder behind him. A wickedly sharp piece lodges in his cheek, though, and he can feel his skin split, a hot trail of bloody rivulets must have him looking like some grim half-masked monster. He smiles.

_ Try to set the night on fire. _

The tear in the earth is directly in front of him, now, his ribs are screaming with each labored breath but he only sees the endgame. He doesn’t try to keep his eyes open, merely flicks the lighter and tosses it, giving one little gasp for luck, or whatever passes for it.

The night erupts in flames, the brilliant flare is felt more than seen. The tattered remains of what had once been a white frilled nightmare of a dress goes up like magician’s paper and Dean vows once again to never let a woman anywhere near him in one of those getups.

He is thrown onto his back, more pain, breathing knives left to stare up at dusk as her shrieking fills the air.  He tries another jerky breath in, as night falls.  _  Time for the champagne toast.   _ She’s nothing but salt and bones.

All is calm but in that weird way; like after a big explosion. Dean rolls onto his side, stares at the changing trees as his ears adjust to the distant sounds of life again. The smoke of a hard salt and burn creeps along, stinging his eyes. The pain settling into his bones brings it home. There is a tug at the lid he keeps tight on the storm of betrayal that fuels him as much as the bad coffee and cheap booze these days.

There’s no gentle hands cataloging his injuries, no awful wedding night puns, or critiques of the takedown, no cooler waiting to be cracked open, no stars to watch fall.

There’s just Dean’s busted body.

He manages to drag himself back to his baby, pops the trunk, snags a random blanket to toss across her leather seats and lowers himself to her waiting darkness.

Looks like he’s gonna have to pass on that cool blonde and settle in for a Tennessee Red, tonight.

He lifts the bottle, and starts on the next haunt, as promised.

One sip at a time.


End file.
